The vice-president for high performance at the German Tennis Federation (DTB) has announced that his federation will vote to change the newly implemented ITF Transition Tour.
Dirk Hordorff has become the latest figure to voice his opposition against the controversial revamp. The International Tennis Federation has made changes to the lower level tournaments in a bid to help more players achieve a better income on the tour. Under the new system, tournaments will be staged within a more localise circuit to make costs lower for both players and tournaments. On top of that, ITF ranking points have been brought in instead of ATP and WTA Points for the lower level events.
In wake of the changes, many players have voiced anger with some saying that they have been left worse off. Croatian player Ana Vrljić is one of the critics. In a lengthy Facebook, she wrote that it is now harder for players to break out onto the main tour.
“Players could see a clear path for them if they play good for a year, if they are consistent eventually they would get there. With these new rules, players lost that vision, they lost seeing it clearly how to get to the top cause it seems almost impossible.” Vrljić wrote.
It now seems that the dissatisfaction with the new circuit is prompting a backlash from some national federations. Hordorff, who is also a fierce critic of the Davis Cup revamp, has sent out a message to urge players to ask their own national tennis bodies to vote against the current transition tour.
“So many active and former players asked for help regarding this changes on the tour. It’s a shame that all are suffering on these changes. I haven’t found anybody supporting this.” He wrote on Facebook.
“My advice to all players: Go to your national federation and ask them to officially announce their support for the change of this reform.
“I will do my best to support this initiative from the German Tennis Federation as Vice President for High Performance Tennis. The DTB was not in favour of this reform and we will vote to change this.”
Under the new system, WTA points are awarded to women playing in events that have $25,000 in prize money or more. In men’s tennis, $25,000 ITF Pro Circuit events will offer both ATP ranking points (later rounds) and ITF Entry Points (all rounds); while the qualifying rounds of ATP Challenger tournaments will also offer both ATP ranking points (all events) and ITF Entry Points (events up to $125,000 in prize money). Under the new system, players can use their ITF ranking to enter into professional tournaments.
https://twitter.com/PaulT_Tennis/status/1092126278478692352
Concerning the men’s tour, Hordorff has claimed that the ATP had previously pledged to hand out ranking points to all of the tournaments. However, it is alleged that the ITF didn’t agree to a condition to not sell their data to betting companies. This conversation came up in the wake of a report into tennis corruption by the IRP. The report recommended that all tournaments shouldn’t have a sponsorship agreement with a betting company.
update
Since the publication of this article, the ITF have contacted Ubitennis to clarify the claims that has been made by Hordorff. The ITF’s Executive Director of Communications & Digital, Heather Bowler, has stated that there is no truth in the claims concerning ranking points.
“There is no truth in the social media posts referred to that ATP ranking points for the ITF World Tennis Tour were conditional on data sales.” Bowler states.
The ITF will be holding a media conference to present the ITF World Tennis Tour in the coming weeks.
